Why Did Israel Just Purchase the Biggest White Elephant in History?

By Moshe Feiglin,
Founder of Zehut

If Israel was not the recipient of American aid, would it have spent its own money to equip itself with the US F-35 jets? Clearly not. But yet, that is exactly what happened this week.

Development on the F35 has not yet been completed, and it is doubtful if it ever really will be. It is a plane that no Israeli pilot has ever flown or will ever fly before it lands in Israel. Israel is not allowed to attach its own missiles to the jet. Israel is not even allowed to provide its own maintenance for the jets without US authorization. In other words, at any given time, the US can neutralize Israel's ability to use the jets. This deal has given us an air force on a leash. Furthermore, the F35 cannot reach the nuclear targets in Iran and in its stealth version cannot even carry ammunition relevant to those targets. (The F15-I does that with no trouble).  A superficial overview of professional aviation websites shows that nobody argues that the F35 is one of the biggest white elephants in history (Ed. note: see The Pentagon's official F-35 bug list is terrifying - ExtremeTech).

So why is Israel purchasing this super-sophisticated piece of junk? For the same reason that we bought the US firefighting planes; the planes that at the moment of truth last week could not take off because it was too windy…

Have you ever asked yourself why an insolvent country like Greece has the most efficient firefighting plane in the world – the Bombardia 415 – (much more efficient than the US Supertanker) while Israel, with one of the best air forces in the world, does not have the plane and must wait for the Greek plane to arrive?

The answer is simple: American "aid".

Israel preferred the US planes, purchased with the US aid money. Who knows how many houses burned in Haifa while we were waiting for the Greek planes to arrive?

If this is the case with Israel's firefighting capabilities, we can just imagine how much the American "aid" has harmed Israel's security capabilities – not to mention its economy.